Inhale, Exhale
by GraveBoy
Summary: A short story about high-school crushes. My Chemical Romance
1. Heartbeat

The new guy was one of those 'too cool for school' punks, totally cliché, leather clad, and fucking adorable – but would he ever go for a guy like Gerard Way? Probably not, like, he probably wouldn't even go for a _guy_ , and it wasn't worth the rejection to find out, so Gerard just low-key admired him from afar with the rest of the girls.

Now, Mikey Way on the other hand, thought otherwise. He encouraged Gerard to go for it – talk to the guy, get to know him, and if nothing else at least he'd know him on a friend level. But Gerard argued that someone like that would probably just laugh at someone like him and never even give him a second thought, and that was pretty much the end of that conversation.

The guy's name was Frank Iero, and from what Gerard saw, he kind of only ever hung out with Ray Toro – the local badass notorious for playing guitar like a god. The two of them were too intimidating to fuck with, that went without saying for the entire student body and probably even the rest of the school systems in the area – and maybe the latter part of that was just a theory Gerard had, but he'd totally believe it.

So when Frank nodded at Gerard in the hallway with a cute little smile on his face, Gerard blushed like mad for five minutes straight, and Mikey noticed. And pointed it out. Loudly.

"Dude, why are you red?" Mikey laughed. Oh the trials and tribulations of having lockers right beside one another. Normally, that'd be bonus to this school, but not today, not right now, not when Gerard's face is beet red after his crush smiled and nodded at him. "Are you blushing?"

Gerard tried to play it off and busied himself with exchanging books.

"No, no way." He shrugged, not glancing back up at Mikey yet.

Mikey closed his own locker and faced Gerard – he wasn't convinced.

"What did he do this time?" Mikey asked. Really, he was just guessing, but Gerard clumsily knocking a pen out of his locker was enough to indicate that Mikey was right.

"Nothing – who are we talking about?" Gerard asked, picking up the pen and placing it back in the locker, careful to avoid eye contact with Mikey the whole time. He tried to keep his expression as neutral as possible.

The bell rang and kids walked past them in a hurry. Gerard silently thanked the higher power for getting him out of this situation before it got any more embarrassing.

Mikey sighed overdramatically and started to back away. "You suck at lying, y'know. If you don't talk to Frank, I'm gonna talk to him for you."

"Talk to me about what?" Frank's voice cut in.

Mikey's attention turned to behind Gerard, and Gerard spun around wide eyed, because holy shit. _He fucking heard._

Frank stood there innocently and cutely – so fucking cutely. Gerard wanted to sink through the floor and never be seen again. Fuck. Ray could obviously see that he and Frank had just interrupted something, be it Mikey's expression which was somewhere between startled and ready to bust out laughing or his brother looking like a mortified lobster at that point, so he smartly kept walking and waved at Frank.

It felt like a couple of centuries passed in the span of a couple of seconds, and Gerard kind of forgot someone had to answer Frank, and out of the corner of his eye he could see that Mikey was still backing up slowly, falling in behind Ray.

 _Shit._

"I gotta get to class, sorry." Mikey said, even though he was so not sorry and they both knew it.

 _Fuck._

Frank looked at Gerard expectantly. The hallway was just a few kids away from being empty and he wasn't sure if that thudding sound was foot steps or his heart beating right out of his chest.

"You okay?" Frank asked casually.

All Gerard could manage was a nod.

Frank smiled softly, "We probably shouldn't be late to class."

"No, yeah. Right." Gerard said, which was just super fucking eloquent.

Okay – inhale, exhale. It wasn't that hard, but Gerard was having difficulty.

"I have math next. You?" Frank asked, slowly starting towards the direction of his next class just like the other guys did, meanwhile Gerard had stayed put and it made him feel self conscious. He told himself to move – do something, don't just stand there.

"Math." Gerard replied. As if this couldn't get more awkward, they were now going the same way. Gerard started to follow Frank.

"Oh, your locker." Frank said.

Gerard looked back at his locker door hanging ajar. Brilliant, that was fucking brilliant. Gerard's face was reaching new shades of red and his heart was probably beating so fast he was about to suffer from cardiac arrest, that is, if he wasn't already – oh, and not to mention what Frank probably thought of him now. How's that for an actual first impression? Death looked sweet.

So, yeah. It wasn't a good first impression, and Gerard couldn't stop thinking about it for the rest of the day. And night. And the memory came right back the next morning. He contemplated faking sick the next day but ended up going to school anyway, it's not like it could've possibly been worse than yesterday, right?

Gerard regretted everything the second he stepped onto school property – but maybe there wasn't a reason to. It left Gerard questioning every embarrassing thing that happened the day prior when Frank said hi to him. _He said hi to him._

 _And_ he sat at the same table at lunch. Gerard tried to think of it as a way to redeem himself, and surprisingly, it just might've worked for once – because as it turned out, they were into the same bands and comics, and Frank was genuinely nice to Gerard.

After the initial panic upon first seeing him, and then the overwhelming sensation of butterflies the size of bats when they first started talking, it felt good to be around Frank. He was sweet and kind, totally unlike the punk vibe he gave off, and Gerard fell hard and fast for him.

Now if only Gerard knew how Frank felt about him.


	2. Breathing

It had been about two months since Gerard's marvelous run-in with Frank Iero. The awkward stage of their newly formed acquaintance was over and had quickly and smoothly transitioned into a friendship, and that was both joyous and nightmarish for Gerard, cause on one hand, he had a really fucking cool new friend, and that was pretty great. But having a whopping crush on said friend was where the nightmare started, and in a place where homophobic fucks outweighed the number of non-homophobic fucks was the part in the nightmare where the faster you run, the slower you go.

And not even knowing if Frank was into guys was the last part of the nightmare where no matter how hard you try, you can't wake yourself up, which was really just the icing on the cake.

Naturally, though, Mikey advised Gerard to find out the ambiguous puzzle that was Frank's sexuality. Kid brothers, man. Gerard's stomach did flips just thinking about bringing it up, cause something like that could potentially blow their newfound friendship to smithereens like _that_. Society can be fucked up sometimes.

Throwing himself under the bus like that didn't seem like a good idea, but Gerard came to the conclusion that sometimes it's the only way to get things done and done efficiently – and also Mikey said if he didn't do it, he'd do it for him.

And this time wasn't like the last. Talking to Frank is one thing, okay, but asking if he was into guys was a whole 'nother can of worms. But Mikey was sick and tired of his brother's moping and constant chorus of "I wonder if Frank likes guys." "Has he ever hinted at anything?" "What if he has a girlfriend I don't know about?" So, Mikey decided to take matters into his own hands.

"Hey, Ray." Mikey smiled.

"Hey Mikey!" Ray raised up from the water fountain, "What's up?"

Mikey sighed and shook his head. "My brother..."

"Uh oh." Ray said, shuffling closer to Mikey to hear better over the sound of slamming lockers and kids chatting. "What's going on with him?"

"I'm just gonna say it," Mikey began, and Ray raised his eyebrows suspiciously. "He's crushing on Frank, like, really badly. Like, I can't go an hour without hearing about it badly."

Ray giggled, pretty adorably at that. "I'm honored that you told me, Mikey. But what does that have to do with me?"

Mikey looked up at Ray, still smiling back, and he had to admit, Ray was pretty cute.

"Gerard's too awkward to find out if Frank's into guys or not, and he doesn't wanna risk their friendship." Mikey explained.

"Oh, man." Ray laughed, and that was pretty confusing, cause why was that funny? "It's not obvious?"

It took a second, and then Ray could practically see the light bulb go off as Mikey got the gist of things and, oh man was right. They had to get those guys together, pronto.

"What are they smiling at?" Gerard asked Frank – passing by Mikey and Ray in the hallway.

"Who knows?" Frank shrugged, and kept walking with Gerard right beside him. "Y'know, they'd make a cute couple."

Gerard smiled, and his heart started race. Cause on one hand, Frank was totally right, and on the other hand, it was an opportunity to bring up his feelings. Since Mikey had been pestering him almost as much as his own mind, he'd been looking for some way to slip it into the conversation without it being awkward.

"Yeah." Gerard agreed. He took a deep breath and avoided eye contact with Frank. "You know who else would make a cute couple? I bet we would."

He nervously glanced over at Frank to see his reaction – and felt an entire mix of emotions that he couldn't make heads or tails out of when he saw that Frank was smiling.

"You think?" Frank asked casually.

 _Oh, god._

Gerard shrugged in some kind of attempt to act neutral. It felt like forever waiting for Frank to reply and Gerard kept reminding himself to inhale and exhale and try not to lose his cool.

Frank laughed, and they came to a stop in the hall where they had to part ways to go to their classes. "Well, I'm gay as hell."

His ears almost had to do a double take.

"Really?" Gerard asked, it was all he could manage. He figured his eyes were the size of saucers, but in the given situation it didn't seem it matter that much.

Frank nodded softly – now it was his turn to watch Gerard's reaction and hope for the best.

"Well," Gerard began with a new sense of giddiness. "I'm bi as hell."

And that's how they came out – and it was also the very beginning as to how they started dating.


End file.
